A lot of mash-up albums don’t work. Two years ago, every hipster DJ seemed to have a mash-up disc at the ready to help promote their name–and only a small number of those were worth a damn. But a new mash-up came out last week that’s definitely something worth checking…
So what if she didn’t win American Idol this year–…local fans can still come and celebrate with Syesha Mercado tomorrow evening at Gulfstream Park for her welcome home party. If you’re lucky, she might sing a couple of tunes but according to the press release below, she’ll probably just be…
John Hood Nada Surf Monday, June 2, 2008 Studio A, Miami Better Than: Letting Leonard Cohen’s bubblegum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight. I’m not supposed to dig Nada Surf. Their songs are sentimental, sometimes sappy even, drenched in despair, cuddled by consolation and stricken in all kinds of…
Justin Namon/thepopnessparty Modeselektor bringing the German groove to Studio A. Modeseleketor with Otto Von Schirach Saturday, May 31, 2008 Studio A, Miami Better than: When Dieter says, “Now is the time on Sprockets vhen ve dance.” For a moment last night it felt like Studio A was back to buzzing…
Natalie O’Neill Alerta! Miami Indie Showcase Friday, May 30, 2008 White Room, Miami It’s not that indie rock kids can’t dance. It’s just that, at most shows, they spend more time leaning against a wall or sucking down a cigarette than moving to the beat. But not at Alterta Indie…
(Image via miami.metblogs.com) Every year, for the print edition, Esquire magazine rounds up a few of its favorite bars in the country. How do they define what makes a bar great? “If it’s a dive, it’s Christ-this-place-is-a-dive dive. If it’s an Irish pub, it’s not an “Irish” pub. If it’s…
A new Rick Ross/Pharrell collabo, “Get Down,” has just leaked all over the Internet. With production by the Neptunes, the beat is more of their usual quirky, club-ready stuff, but definitely a lot faster and more trebly than anything the Boss usually rocks. Forced to rap at that speed and…
If you were at the Rock The Bells last year in Miami, you can probably attest that it was the best hip-hop tour of the year. The line-up was solid, the weather was perfect, and the vibes for the whole show were just nice. Rock The Bells has announced the…
You know, somebody really should come out with a Beyond the Grave mixtape series. Morbid, yes. But given the number of stellar rappers/producers who have passed away over the years (still tripping off of Camu Tao’s death this past Sunday), it would probably be a smash success. When Brooklyn’s DJ…
Apakalypse Walking Coma (Rhyme Network) www.myspace.com/apacalypse Hey! Not bad. This is some kind of paranoid hip-hop that has brewed in some thick blunt smoke, videogames, welfare checks, UFO abductions, Eighties cartoons, and Asian punany. The beats are good and at times distorted, and the hooks are where they should be,…
Long established as the most accessible act in contemporary prog-metal, New York’s Dream Theater is probably more accurately described as a hard rock band whose members just happen to know how to play the shit out of their instruments. Prog’s defining tendencies toward nutty arrangements, obscure classical influences, and multiple…
The apparent goal of this local-artist extravaganza, according to the tireless Oski Gonzalez and his cohort, the anonymous Queen of the Scene, is to present “culturally diverse artists.” Well, that’s sort of a given in Miami, no? In any event, Oski has again done what he does best — arranged…
This weekend, Down Home Southernaires hit NE 14th Street two nights in a row, to play two neighboring venues. The Vagabond and PS14 are nice venues for dancing and drinking. And though the stage areas at both clubs are small, it’s this kind of intimate setting where amazing local shows…
Beyond the crush of Winter Music Conference, the folks behind Soul Simple Entertainment have been keeping it real for lovers of house music on that, well, soulful tip. They’ve been sort of quietly running a weekly Friday jam in the bar attached to the restaurant Ouzo’s, with the soundtrack supplied…
No Age, the axe-‘n’-drums duo from L.A., has reconnected with the quirky and all-too-damaged spirits coursing through old-school American indie rock. Nouns’ title stinks compared to that of the band’s 2007 debut, Weirdo Rippers, but the jams are way better. There’s this distorto-pop thrasher called “Teen Creeps” that rules the…
The image of African music, as seen through American eyes, goes through phases. Right now we’re in a retro moment: It would be easy to look at the deluge of compilation CDs (the three Nigeria Special volumes, Nigeria 70, and the Lagos All Routes and Lagos Chop Up sets) and…
We should begin with the time John “Bloodclot” Joseph dressed up as a retarded, wheelchair-bound Santa Claus and scammed horrified Staten Island shopping-mall patrons on behalf of the Hare Krishnas. In his memoir, The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon, Joseph claims to have made $3,000 in just one week this way,…
“Everyone else who gets the one-hit-wonder tag had real hits,” chuckles Nada Surf frontman Matthew Caws. Caws should know about real hits. His band scored one in 1996 with the song “Popular,” off the band’s debut album, appropriately titled High/Low. With its slow-creeping guitar line, loud/soft alterna-rock crunch, and increasingly…
In the Sixties, while British Invasion bands dominated the Anglophone music scene, a group of young Brazilian performers took their own unique look at the possibilities of rock music. They soon began spreading the seeds of what would become known as the Jovem Guarda (the Young Guard), a movement that…
After getting Richie Hawtin down here outside of Winter Music Conference for a packed-to-the-gills one-off last December, the local promoters of Future Mob have scored another seemingly impossible booking. The latest feather in their cap: an ultra-rare Miami appearance by the German duo Modeselektor, enticed to come down at the…
It’s natural that Foxy Brown is the object of Ali G’s affections — with her foul mouth and short skirt, she epitomizes the fake gangsta-ism he parodies. At least she has the track record to support it: Brown recently finished a stint at Rikers Island, having violated probation stemming from…
Prong’s Tommy Victor recently remarked that metal bands can’t play in standard E tuning anymore because they’d “sound like the Eagles.” Not that Meshuggah ever had anything to worry about, but about midway through the band’s career, the guitarists switched from using already-low seven-string guitars to an eight-string approach in…
